Month: October 2004

A few interesting links

Interesting news and sites I learned about lately:

  • If you are closely following the presidential elections in the US, here is one you’d love. This site follows all the various polls and gives you an estimate of the electoral votes for Bush and Kerry.
  • Fired from Delta Airlines for blogging . I guess it won’t be long before companies have strict guidleines for blogging.
  • Truly fascinating fund raising effort from the Firefox browser folks $250K in less than 10 days.
  • If you use gmail, just fyi.
  • If you are into following VCs, investments and other tech stories from silicon valley, this a useful blog

Top 10 signs its a Kerry White House


10. Environmentalists are celebrating because a Bush has been planted in Texas.

09. Laura Bush is back to being a librarian, this time of the Bush Presidential library.

08. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz openly distribute their Halliburton business cards.

07. New Social Security policy: “Don’t ask, Don’t touch”
06. Thanksgiving celebration all across the Middle East.
05. Bush says the unemployed should get the flu vaccine first.
04. Bush recommends building a Whitehouse in Bangalore to cut costs and is open to re-locating.
03. Boston and Chennai named sister cities as Tam-Brahms (Tamil Brahmins) bond with Bos-Brahms (Boston Brahmins).

02. Communication strategists have a new name for Outsourcing, its called “In-and-Out” Sourcing.

01. Arnie is having “fantastic” sex every single day!

Six months of Blogging…..and to be continued

I have been blogging for close to 6 months now and I must admit that lately it has become hard to keep up. As Mr. Bush would say, “It’s hard!” There has been so much going on, finding time for blogging has been difficult. The truth though is that there has not been a single day when I have not thought about blogging. Hope to be back with more frequent posts in the not too distant future.

Meanwhile, boy, there has been so much going on — Aussies have thrashed the desis (you find video highlights here), the Bush-Kerry battle has been a dead heat, Googs are now worth close to $200 a pop (and we thought there is no money in tech stocks!), even the elusive Veerapan is no more, Arafat is fighting for his life while two leaders have been chosen to cover up in his absence (The French are thrilled that they finally beat the Americans in something), a close buddy of mine chucked his job and re-located to India with plans to chill out for a couple of years, Rajnikant is back (this time for real), and so is Mr. Bin (not surprising the tape came in from Pak). To top it off, I managed to have a get together with my close buddies from undergrad dorm. 7 out of 9 folks who happened to be in North America actually got together in the SF bay area for a wonderful weekend full of laughter and nostalgia.

The Vice-Presidential debate

Saw the debate. The format certainly suited Mr. Cheney’s style, but he couldn’t help coming across as a “school principal who knew all the answers” like Tom Brokaw aptly put it. Mr. Edwards on the other hand looked young, charming, but almost canned. He certainly does his best to emulate Clinton, but he just can’t come close. Nevertheless, I think he held his own throughout the debate. On the crucial question of being a heart beat away from the Presidency, I thought Mr. Edwards did a less than convincing job of answering the question. Instead, he quickly diverted attention from it. Mr. Cheney didn’t quite jump onto the issue (and even if he did it lacked impact because of his low-key style of delivery) as I think he should have. I guess he doesn’t like to talk whole lot about it, because in his case he gets to be President while he is still the Vice-President! Mr. Cheney did his party’s campaign some damage when he referred to http://www.factcheck.com instead of http://www.factcheck.org

In the current battle for the Presidency, a lot has been said about “flip-flop”. First the Republicans accussed John Kerry of flip-flopping. Now the democrats say that President Bush is the one who has been flip-flopping. When does one flip-flop? Obviously, it happens when you are not sure of something. Ironically, when asked specifically about it (What’s wrong with a little flip-flop every now and then?) in the debate, both candidates evaded the question and instead accused each other of flip-flopping!

When significant decisions that impact millions of people across the globe have to be taken, its understandable that there might be a legitimate reason to flip-flop. In fact, it might be better to flip-flop and analyze the situation a little longer before coming to a decision. In President Bush’s words, “Its hard!” Perhaps, if we hadn’t been so sure about Iraq and instead flip-flopped a little we might not be in the mess we find ourselves in today?

In the summary, I think Mr. Cheney came across as tough, hard-assed and uncompromising while Mr. Edwards did appear a little light weight at times. I don’t beleive that either side did enough damage to the other to impact public opinion or the race for that matter. In short, this debate will be forgotten by the time the second debate gets underway, which incidentally is in a couple of days.